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The station store

Fly the station's colors.

What is for sale

The Watch Continues Tee — A cotton tee for the whole story: the lightship that held the shoals from 1854, and the station that took the watch in 1964. — back

Order now · ships mid-October

The Watch Continues Tee

A cotton tee for the whole story: the lightship that held the shoals from 1854, and the station that took the watch in 1964.

Before there was a station there was a ship. From 1854 a lightship rode at anchor over Frying Pan Shoals, and her crews kept the light through a century of weather until the steel station was raised in 1964 and took the watch. The back carries both, drawn in the old engraving style, with the years they served. The left chest carries the station alone, standing watch since 1964.

Soft ring-spun cotton in natural. The cloth is undyed, so the small flecks in it are the cotton itself.

This shirt is at the printer now. Order today and yours is posted when the run lands in mid-October.

  • Gildan Softstyle · 4.5 oz, 100% ring-spun cotton
  • Natural, undyed · the flecks are cotton fibre
  • Short sleeve · unisex, semi-fitted
  • Printed back and left chest
Frying PanShoalsLight Station

$38

Order now · ships mid-October

Choose a size

  • MOnly 2 left1
  • LOnly 1 left1
  • XLSold out
  • 2XLSold out

Checkout is handled by Stripe on their own secure page — we never see your card. Postage is $9.99 per order, added there. United States only for now.

The Station Sun Shirt — Short Sleeve — Sublimated UPF performance knit, cut for a working deck thirty-two miles out. — back

The Station Sun Shirt — Short Sleeve

Sublimated UPF performance knit, cut for a working deck thirty-two miles out.

The station sits in open Atlantic with no shade on it anywhere. This is the shirt for that — a light performance knit with the sun protection built into the fabric rather than washed into it, printed by sublimation so the design is part of the cloth and cannot crack or peel.

Cut loose enough to work in, and quick enough to dry between crossings.

  • Sublimated UPF performance knit · white
  • Short sleeve · unisex fit
  • Moisture-wicking, quick-dry
Frying PanShoalsLight Station

$44

Choose a size

  • MSold out
  • LSold out
  • XLSold out
  • 2XLSold out

Checkout is handled by Stripe on their own secure page — we never see your card. Postage is $9.99 per order, added there. United States only for now.

The Station Sun Shirt — Long Sleeve — Full-sleeve UPF performance knit — the one the crews actually wear. — back

The Station Sun Shirt — Long Sleeve

Full-sleeve UPF performance knit — the one the crews actually wear.

Long sleeves are not a style choice offshore. On a steel platform with the sun coming off the water as well as out of the sky, covering your arms is the difference between a good day and a bad one, and this is the shirt the crews reach for.

Same sublimated performance knit as the short sleeve, with the arms it needs.

  • Sublimated UPF performance knit · white
  • Long sleeve · unisex fit
  • Moisture-wicking, quick-dry
Frying PanShoalsLight Station

$54

Choose a size

  • MSold out
  • LSold out
  • XLOnly 1 left1
  • 2XLOnly 3 left1

Checkout is handled by Stripe on their own secure page — we never see your card. Postage is $9.99 per order, added there. United States only for now.

The Station Sun Hoodie — Hooded UPF performance knit — sleeves, hood, and nothing catching the back of your neck. — back

The Station Sun Hoodie

Hooded UPF performance knit — sleeves, hood, and nothing catching the back of your neck.

The hood is the point. Sun on the back of the neck is what catches people out on a long crossing, and a hooded performance shirt solves it without a hat for the wind to take.

Light enough to keep on all day; the hood pushes back when you are inside.

  • Sublimated UPF performance knit · white
  • Hooded, long sleeve · unisex fit
  • Moisture-wicking, quick-dry
Frying PanShoalsLight Station

$62

Choose a size

  • MSold out
  • LSold out
  • XLSold out
  • 2XLOnly 2 left1

Checkout is handled by Stripe on their own secure page — we never see your card. Postage is $9.99 per order, added there. United States only for now.

The Water Camo Sun Shirt — Long-sleeve UPF knit in Columbia blue water camo. — back

The Water Camo Sun Shirt

Long-sleeve UPF knit in Columbia blue water camo.

The only piece in the first run that is not white. A water-camouflage print in Columbia blue, on the same sublimated performance knit as the rest of the run.

It is the loudest thing here, and the one people ask about on the dock.

  • Sublimated UPF performance knit · Columbia blue water camo
  • Long sleeve · unisex fit
  • Moisture-wicking, quick-dry
Frying PanShoalsLight Station

$64

Choose a size

  • MSold out
  • LSold out
  • XLSold out
  • 2XLSold out

Checkout is handled by Stripe on their own secure page — we never see your card. Postage is $9.99 per order, added there. United States only for now.

The first run is here.

This is the first run, and we're glad it's these: sun shirts, the kind the crews actually wear offshore. The run is small — a handful of each size — and when a size goes it stays gone until the next run lands, and the next run is coming. Everything the store earns goes to the restoration.

Since 1964

What a shirt does, thirty-two miles out.

She was built in 1964 to a design borrowed from offshore oil platforms — four steel legs driven into a shoal that had wrecked enough ships to earn this coast the name Graveyard of the Atlantic. Coast Guard crews lived aboard for fifteen years; automated after 1979, her light kept ships off the shoal until 2004, and a 2010 federal auction put her in private hands.

Today her co-owners are bringing her back — new steel, sealed decks, restored quarters, crews and materials carried thirty-two miles out in whatever window the Atlantic allows. There is no public funding; the work runs on visits and on this store. A shirt buys marine paint. A print buys welding rod. It adds up.

Before you order

A limited run.

These shirts are not printed one at a time somewhere else. A run is ordered, and it is packed and posted from North Carolina by the people restoring the station. Shirts on the shelf go out on the next post day, which means most leave within a week. A shirt marked as a pre-order on its card goes out when its run lands, and your order confirmation says so. Postage is one flat charge per order, and United States addresses for now.

Because the run is finite, a size that sells out stays sold out until the next one is ordered. There is no back-order and no waiting list — the honest thing is to say so rather than take money for a shirt that does not exist.

If a shirt arrives damaged or wrong, write to store@fpsls.com within thirty days with a photograph and it will be put right. That is the whole policy — no restocking fee and no form to fill in.

The next era

More service ahead of her than behind.

The plan was never a relic. The restoration points at a working station — light burning, quarters lived in, guests and volunteers making the crossing the way crews once did. That is what the store funds, and it is why every piece in it is named for the station, the shoal, and the year she was built.

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